A Detroit Anthology

Lost in Hockeytown Matthew Lewis and Aaron Mondry ! Joe Louis Arena (JLA, or simply “The Joe”) is hallowed ground in Hockeytown. Since relocating from Olympia Stadium in 1979 to this downtown riverfront arena, the Detroit Red Wings emerged from the lamented “Dead Wings” era, reaching the postseason each of the last twenty-two seasons (the longest such streak for any franchise in major American sports) and winning four Stanley Cups. The arena itself, home to one of the most robust and energetic fan bases in all of hockey, deserves some credit for the Red Wings’ success. The widely acknowledged elasticity of Joe’s wood-backed boards—a unique feature among all other NHL venues— gives the Wings a distinct home ice advantage. It’s not surprising that the Wings hold the NHL record (set during the 2011–2012 season) for the longest home winning streak (twenty-three games). For the last thirty-five years, the Joe has been a great venue to watch a hockey game, but its days are numbered. On February 4, 2014, the Detroit City Council approved a deal that would transfer roughly forty-five blocks of land in the Lower Cass Corridor neighborhood to the Detroit Development Authority. This entity will lease the land to Olympia Entertainment (at no cost), enabling the construction of a $450 million arena with assurances of $200 million in additional funds towards spin-off real estate developments in the district. Over half of construction costs are expected to come from public sources. At the time of writing, Olympia Entertainment’s plans for the new arena district are vague. But the project has captured the attention of local media, sparking public discussions about local hiring requirements and the potential gentrification of the Lower Cass Corridor. But surprisingly little attention has been paid to Joe Louis Arena and its fate. According to some reports, the state will foot the bill to demolish the Joe shortly after the new arena opens, but no firm guarantees exist. (It took the city eight years to demolish Olympia after the Wings relocated to the Joe). A proper evaluation of JLA’s successes and failures is necessary to inform the design and construction of a new facility and determine the fate of the riverfront site that the Joe currently occupies. § From prehistoric times when Native Americans settled in Southeast Michigan to the present day, one of Detroit’s defining features and most valuable assets has been its riverfront. During Detroit’s industrial heyday, the western portion of the riverfront currently occupied by JLA and Cobo Center was heavily utilized as a transshipment point where raw materials were conveyed from lake freighters to railroad cars. By midcentury, the west riverfront was seen by city planners as an area with great potential for redevelopment. The zeitgeist in major American cities was to restructure downtowns into regional entertainment destinations in order to combat the exodus of residents and tax base to rapidly developing suburbs. Detroit was no different. In 1947, the Detroit Chapter of the American Institute of Architects contracted the firm Saarinen & Associates to develop a plan for a new civic center in downtown’s west riverfront district. Most elements of this plan were largely incorporated into the city’s 1951 Master Plan, which called for a widened Jefferson Avenue, a county-city municipal building (the Coleman A. Young Municipal Building), a “large landscaped plaza” on the riverfront (Hart Plaza), “a convention hall and a civic auditorium” (Cobo Hall and Cobo Arena), and a “downtown expressway loop” (the John C. Lodge Expressway) that passes underneath the convention center and connects with Jefferson Avenue. The near west riverfront of today looks remarkably like the conceptual drawings of the 1951 plan. This period of massive scale downtown redevelopment coincided with the early stages of Detroit’s long-term population decline. By 1960, when Cobo Center was completed, the city had 180,000 fewer residents than in 1950, experiencing its first loss of population since its founding. Many of these residents, however, had not left the metro area and still used downtown as an occasional playground. The 1973 Master Plan continued the course set by the 1951 plan, prescribing further redevelopment of downtown into an entertainment destination. Special attention was given to the riverfront: The plan is designed to assist the city in making maximum use of its riverfront resource and to capture more fully the potential of the Detroit River as Detroit’s most outstanding natural resource. A major objective of the city is to encourage and facilitate the development of the riverfront by uses which derive a particular benefit from a riverfront location. [emphasis added] The plan is also the first document to suggest the development of a sports stadium near the civic center: Special commercial-residential areas are indicated just east of and west of the Civic Center . These areas should be developed with a major office headquarters complex, an international gateway, or a major spectator sport facility of regional significance and supporting uses such as hotels, restaurants, major institutions, medium-rise offices, and apartments. [emphasis added] It is clear from these excerpts that planners expected the arena to have a harmonious relationship with its riverfront location and generate economic spillover for the rest of downtown. By 1977, Mayor Coleman A. Young’s administration was set on developing a new downtown arena for the Red Wings to retain them in the city. The Wings were playing in an aging Olympia Stadium, located on Grand River Avenue at McGraw, about three miles outside of downtown, and, according to Young, were threatening to move to the suburbs if the city did not built the team a new facility. Young’s administration identified a site along the west riverfront adjacent to Cobo Center that was occupied by underutilized warehouses, railroad yards, and docks. These impediments were demolished to make way for JLA, the final piece required to realize the vision for Detroit’s downtown civic center set forth in its past two master plans. Joe Louis Arena opened in 1979, and the Red Wings signed a thirty-year lease to make the Joe their home. Olympia Stadium was abandoned and eventually razed. Named for legendary Detroit boxer Joe Louis, the “Brown Bomber,” JLA is one of only three current NHL venues not named for a corporate sponsor. Joe Louis Arena is emblematic of the type of urban redevelopment project favored by the administration of Coleman A. Young: massive, modern, and expensive (see also: Renaissance Center, Millender Center, Riverfront Towers, Detroit-Hamtramck Assembly Plant, People Mover). It also was a major investment in downtown development, perhaps at the expense of neighborhood stabilization and core service provision. As a way to showcase Detroit’s downtown transformation on a national stage, Mayor Coleman A. Young, a lifelong Democrat, succeeded in attracting the 1980 Republican National Convention, where Ronald Reagan, a man Young once referred to as “Pruneface,” accepted the GOP’s nomination inside of Joe Louis Arena. In his autobiography Hard Stuff, Young writes: Although Detroit was and is an overwhelmingly Democratic city, and although I have traditionally been at cross-purposes with the prevailing ideology of the Republicans, as a champion of the United States Constitution and the spirit of bipartisan cooperation, I fully supported their right to assemble and spend lots of money in our hotels, shops, and restaurants. I also appreciated what the national exposure could do for the city’s image, which was still characterized by the ’67 riot and out-of-date murder charts. And I was thrilled to see Joe Louis Arena enjoy such a conspicuous and honorable christening. At the same time, the convention was an event that I find difficult to index historically. To this day, it sticks in my craw that Ronald Reagan was nominated in the damn building that I put myself on the line for. The choice of JLA as the site of Reagan’s nomination acceptance speech was oddly fitting. Though Detroit was the largest majority African American city in the United States and had not elected a Republican mayor in decades, the Wings’ fan base was and is dominated by suburban whites. Many of the people who packed the Joe on game days would come to be known as “Reagan Democrats” for their role in helping the Gipper win the White House. The 1980 GOP convention was appropriate symbolism, for it soon became evident that the Joe was designed for Detroit’s visitors, not its residents. § ! Some have argued that Detroit has lacked effective planning over the last half century— that the city has failed to get things done. The large-scale redevelopment of downtown and the near-west riverfront, however, has been immense in scale and anything but ineffective. The planners succeeded in setting out a vision that would take shape in glass, concrete, and steel. Whether the effects of this thorough implementation have been good, whether, the ’73 Master Plan made “maximum use of its riverfront resource,” is another question entirely. After the 1980 GOP convention, Joe Louis Arena would be used primarily as a venue for hockey and other large-scale entertainment spectacles like concerts and wrestling matches. The Red Wings play forty-one home games in a given season and a handful more in the event of a playoff run. Approximately twenty-five other sporting and entertainment events are held at the Joe throughout the year. Despite these uses, there are hundreds of days each year during which the arena sits idle. Many variables determine an arena’s true worth. The Joe’s interior adequately provides everything necessary to enjoy a game or show, though it lacks many of the amenities and design features found in newer stadiums (e.g.

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